Temple athletic director Patrick Kraft takes same post at Boston College

Patrick Kraft, who has been Temple’s athletic director since 2015, has been named director of athletics at Boston College, effective July 1. Boston College announced the hiring Wednesday morning.

Kraft, 43, came to Temple in 2013 and served as deputy director of athletics. He was hired in May of 2015 as the athletic director.

Kraft succeeds Martin Jarmond at Boston College. Jarmond was named the director of athletics at UCLA in May.

Temple president Richard M. Englert said Kraft will continue working in his current position until the end of the month.

“He is amazing, he said he would stay until then because he cares about the student-athletes,” Englert said in a phone interview.

Englert said the school plans to name an interim AD “in the not-too-distant future.” He said he hopes the interim AD and Kraft will get to work together before he departs for Boston College.

“I would like to have maybe two weeks or so overlap or something like that, but that has yet to be determined,” Englert said. “... I would certainly like, by the middle of the month, or certainly before Pat leaves, to name the interim AD so that there would ideally be some time for them to work together.”

A potential candidate will be Temple’s current deputy director of athletics Craig Angelos, who joined the Owls staff in 2015. Angelos is a former AD at Florida Atlantic University.

Kraft, who played football at Indiana, was on the short list for several AD jobs. He was among three finalists for the Maryland position in 2018. Kraft was also considered a strong candidate for the AD job at Indiana, which named Scott Dolson to the position in March.

Before coming to Temple, Kraft served two years (2011-13) as the executive senior associate athletics director at Loyola University Chicago. Prior to that, he was a member of the senior staff at Indiana, serving as senior assistant director from 2009-11.

Temple second-year coach Rod Carey enjoyed a strong relationship with Kraft.

“He is a football guy and he gets football, and from my perspective that was real fun to be part of,” Carey said in a phone interview.

Carey has been in a similar situation. Four months after he was named interim head coach at Northern Illinois, the school’s athletic director left for the same position at East Carolina. So Carey had a new AD before his first full season. He was a head coach there for six seasons before coming to Temple.

“Maybe it’s me,” Carey quipped. He then turned serious. “Overall, I am really happy for Pat,” he said.

In a statement provided by Boston College, Kraft talked about his new job.

“I am truly honored to be selected to serve Boston College as the steward of such a great intercollegiate athletics department,” Kraft said. “The core values of Boston College are in alignment with how I live my life and how I approach my job, creating world-class experiences for student-athletes with the utmost of integrity, character, faith and love. We will compete for championships, we will continue to graduate young men and women who will go on to change the world, and we will represent BC with pride.”